Who exactly is being referred to here?

What a peaceful-looking place.

Everyone’s more or less settled into their roles, so there’s no real shifts in discourse. That’s one thing I’m speculating on being the reason.

From what I can tell, I certainly don't see much to indicate China's looking to carve out spheres of influence, at least compared to the US, but I'm not holding out hopes that this will last for very long in the long term.

I don't deny the benefits of China's transactional approach to diplomacy, nor do I deny the fact that China has very much become an ascendant power that has probably long overtaken the US in certain key areas, but there's a point where some more self-awareness is needed.

Some of the conversations I've had have been revealing in how certain people envision a world where everything is centered around trade and commerce with China, with no tensions or conflicts resulting from that because it would be in the own mutual best interests.

I understand that this is only peripherally related to what you're discussing overall, but I feel nonetheless that it's worth mentioning.

In particular, I notice that those who like taking about the future multipolar world are in reality taking about an assumed unipolar one with China at the center instead of the US, with a lot of the discussions of multipolarity serving more as ideological contrast with the US than anything else.

As an example, for me a lot of the problems with the current discussions around China is that they make a lot of assumptions about both Chinese interests and "what's good for the world" that seems to be fundamentally at odds with human nature the concept of dignity.